http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030319-040543-3049r WASHINGTON, March 19 (UPI) -- The top National Security Council official in the war on terror resigned this week for what a NSC spokesman said were personal reasons, but intelligence sources say the move reflects concern that the looming war with Iraq is hurting the fight against terrorism. Rand Beers would not comment for this article, but he and several sources close to him are emphatic that the resignation was not a protest against an invasion of Iraq. But the same sources, and other current and former intelligence officials, described a broad consensus in the anti-terrorism and intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq would divert critical resources from the war on terror. Beers has served as the NSC's senior director for counter-terrorism only since August. The White House said Wednesday that he officially remains on the job and has yet to set a departure date. "Hardly a surprise," said one former intelligence official. "We have sacrificed a war on terror for a war with Iraq. I don't blame Randy at all. This just reflects the widespread thought that the war on terror is being set aside for the war with Iraq at the expense of our military and intel resources and the relationships with our allies."
Didn't anyone give him the stirring, inspiring "walk and chew gum" speech? Maybe he hasn't heard that we're going to announce the capture of Bin Laden within hours.
Wow. This isn't big news today. But someday it probably will be big news in retrospect. It'll be hilarious in a "ha ha your mother's dead" sort of way when the news media try to figure out why they had no clue that the war on Iraq was interfering with the war on terror.
Too bad it's a UPI story. Didn't we just question the veracity of the stuff on the UPI wire in another thread?
It has this, though. "News of Beers's departure was followed yesterday by the third resignation of a U.S. diplomat over Iraq policy since last month. Mary A. Wright, the number two official at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia, had spent 15 years in the foreign service and 26 years in the Army and Army Reserves. "I strongly believe that going to war now will make the world more dangerous, not safer," Wright said in a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. "In our press for military action now, we have created deep chasms in the international community and in important international organizations. Our policies have alienated many of our allies and created ill will in much of the world." Wright, the highest-ranking diplomat to resign over the current situation, also criticized what she called a "lack of policy on North Korea" and said she disagrees with the administration's "lack of effort" in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She said the United States has "done little" to end the violence. She called on the administration to "exert our considerable financial influence" on the Israelis and Palestinians alike. "I have served my country for almost 30 years in some of the most isolated and dangerous parts of the world," concluded Wright, who won a State Department heroism award in 1997 in Sierra Leone. "I want to continue to serve America. However, I do not believe in the policies of the administration and cannot defend or implement them."
Another career bureaucrat more interested in protecting his own turf than in national interests. The war on terrorism and the war on Iraq are linked inseparably.
Wait, so, Perle and Wolfowitz knew years in advance that the WTC and Pentagon would be attacked, and drew up a plan to invade Iraq in retaliation?